First Time Campers Report
James Y., Scorpions Historian
On a Friday morning, some Boy Scouts and other organization volunteers arrived at Wolf Trap National Park to volunteer for the First Time Campers program at around 8:00 AM. 
We set up picnic tables, the food and gear, and unloaded tents to prepare for the 5th and 6th graders, which most of the participants were. When people started coming during 10:00 AM, we introduced them to the camp and led them down the hill to our flat campsite. We put them into patrols, assigned volunteers to be patrol leaders, and left them to decide their name and chant.
There were four patrols – Trappers, Atomic Blueberries, Hype, and the Weirdos. After setting them up with a name and chant. We taught them on knife safety and taught them how to cut their food for lunch and sandwiches. After we instructed them on the 3 Pot Method for cleanup, we helped campers set up their tents. They were much bigger, and easy to fit even six people at a time, being shaped like a towering hexagon with two doors on each side.
We rotated activities doing Dutch oven digging and knife safety/ cutting, along with the 3 Pot Method again. We also went on a hike, along with “Super Activities”. There was catching bugs in a miniature garden, yoga, digging holes in a giant garden, and archery. Campers rotated through all the activities. They soon came back to practice and brainstorm skits. All of a s
udden, it started pouring hard, and campers made a mad dash to their tents, screaming and shrieking whenever they heard boom of thunder or lightning. It took so long to get them rounded up and transported to stage audience area. Campers and volunteers were wet and exhausted.
When we came back to the campsite, it was pretty dark, and we had a dinner of stew, containing mainly pork, tomatoes, carrots, veggies, and potatoes, even though some people didn’t like it. We took our bowls to the 3 Pot Method area and washed our own bowls. Then, we did our skits in front of a smaller stage closer to our campsite. Boy Scouts led some of the songs. We roasted s’mores over two small campfires in iron bowls. At around 10:00 PM everybody was instructed to go to sleep.
The following Saturday morning, we woke up at around 7:00 AM and started cooking bacon & eggs, and also sausage. Campers learned how to use our lightweight stoves and make the food. However, there was one incident where flames completely engulfed the stove and turned the paper labels and instructions into black, square cookies. When we finished breakfast, we took a backstage tour of the stage we retreated to during the storm yesterday and took a hike through the woods. We had lunch next. We cooked hamburgers/ cheeseburgers on our lightweight stoves, and added whatever we wanted on there. Then, we finished and campers packed up their tents and gear. As they finished up, they took a survey at the end on how they liked camp, and went to the mini stage. We talked about what we could do better and honored volunteers. After the closing ceremony, we sent the kids back up the steep hill to their parents and received goody bags with a handbook, a pen, a pedometer, and some paperwork stuff. Us 
Boy Scouts cleaned up the messes and loaded the tents and gear back into the storage. When we finished, we went home.
I thought the First Time Campers Program was fun and I enjoyed many of the activities and volunteering, along with catching a humongous Chinese Mantis in the miniature garden. It seemed like a great experience for the campers and the volunteers.
